Golden Globe Nominations Another Mixed Bag

Let’s start with the good.
The Best Picture: Drama choices — Darren Aronofski's Black Swan, David O. Russell's The Fighter(both
of which open here this week), Christopher Nolan's
Inception, Tom Hooper's The King's Speech and David Fincher's The Social
Network — are all worthy of praise, as
are their directors, each of whom also received a nod. It would have been cool
to see Debra
Granik's Winter's Bone in there (as well as any number of lesser-known
films), but it's hard to complain too much given some of the Hollywood Foreign
Press' previous Best Picture caprices.

The same can't be said of the
Best Picture: Comedy or Musical nominees, a lame batch (Alice in
Wonderland, Burlesque, Red and The Tourist) saved only by the presence of Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right. Lee
Unkrich's Toy Story 3, which was nominated for Best Animated Feature, would
have been an inspired choice. And a more adventurous list would include darker
comedies like Cyrus, Greenberg or I Love You
Phillip Morris. Hell, I'd rather see Hot Tub Time
Machine in there before the four
mediocrities in the parenthesis above.

The acting categories are
always a mixed bag of truly deserving performances and those whose inclusion are clearly a nod to getting higher-profile celebrities in the awards-night room. I
can't grumble too much about the Best Actor: Drama list — though Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter
could have been replaced by any number of better options (where's Biutiful's Javier Bardem, or
even Ben
Stiller in Greenberg?).

Best Actress: Drama nominees
are equally strong — Natalie Portman
now seems almost a lock to win an Oscar for Black Swan — though the inclusion of Halle Berry (Frankie & Alice) was a surprise.

Another unfortunate surprise was the
three nods for The
Tourist(Best Picture: Comedy or Musical
and lead acting nominations in the same genre for Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie),
which has been universally lambasted. In fact, scanning the various nominees in
nearly every Comedy or Music category is one long head-scratching endeavor.

Then there's the complete
disregard for the Coen
brothers' True Grit.

Of course, complaining about
the Golden Globes is akin to complaining about Hollywood in general — a
fruitless task that shouldn't be taken up by those looking for artistic
relevance.